Ok guys, what was you worst and the funniest moment you had in basic or boot camp.
And for the guys who went out to the field alot, what was the funniest and worst thing about that.
For me , Basic in all was the worst. Well not really. I did hate the ground up in Leonardwood. It took us all day to dig a fight position that was only 6 inches deep.I have 2 funnies: First day that we got to our barracks, we had a shake down. One guy forgot, or his girl snuck it in his bag, he had a PAIR OF PINK PANTIES in his bag. Needless to say, the Drill Instructors found it and had a field day with it.

Worst field problem I had was at Ft.Benning. We had to be out on the range for Bradley Gunnery and we had a Bradley down. It took us 3 days to fix it. I was up for 2 days straight, and it was my turn to go back to the rear for a shower and a hot meal.
Funniest Fiel problem: NTC, California, guard duty in in the middle of the night out several meters from base camp and alone! I here something scratching all night and I couldnt see what it as. For a brief second, I turned and staring me right in the eye was Coyote just chilling next to me. I unloaded a full 30 round magazine of BLANK ammo at him thinking I was unloading on the enemy. Of course I woke everybody up and they didnt like that.

Well, I remember a worst moment in training at the Security Police Academy in San Antonio. Obstacle Course, summer, HOT, I remember just beginning to attack the course. Got stung in the knee by a hornet. Damnit, couldn't stop either - I completed the course under the allotted time, but my knee felt like Hell afterwards.

Second worse - same knee - same location. Running in formation - close order drill. Kid in front of me had "crazy-legs syndrome". In close order, I got kicked in the knee. Again, couldn't stop and wouldn't DARE fall out of formation either. My knee actually has never been the same since, and I had a great deal of discomfort running for the rest of my military service.

Gunnie

Worst moment in basic training-
Freezing my a** off at 0-dark-30 in the dead of winter at Ft. Dix, NJ.
The funniest were off duty in and around the bars in Japan. Not suitable for a family-type website.

Ooooh Ron - can we say "Banana Show"?!?

Funniest moment in Basic or the Field...

Semi-Annual Weapons Qualifications. I remember on Okinawa going to the firing line with the rest of my SP Flight. I always qualified, but hadn't made Expert Marksman yet. I think I really had a bad case of "muzzle-flash fear" now that I look bad at it. It made me flinch as I depressed the trigger on the sidearm. The AR-15 wasn't as bad - because the muzzle was further from my face.

Anyway, this day, we were going throught the typical run in place, stop on command, draw and fire drills. Ahead of me about three bays was one of the senior members of our Flight, an E6 who was a great guy, though he reminded you of Barney Fife. Range Commander gave the orders, and we high-stepped in place for about a minute. He then barked out the order to stop, draw the sidearm from the hip holster, and fire on the target. Our E6 stopped and drew - throwing his weapon out into the range pit in fronts of us.

We all nearly fell over the edge of the firing line trying not to fire as the Range Commander was yelling out commands to keep us in place and not fire the weapons - in the event someone jumped into the pit to retreive the sidearm. We all were ordered to hit the deck - go prone position - in case the revolver went off.

It was deathly silent, and I was staring ahead downrange afraid to look to my left or the right and incite the wrath of the Range Commander, but I KNOW I wasn't the only one squeezing the Hell outta the butt of my revolver to keep from rolling in laughter!

I made Expert Marksman that day - something about that incident helped me overcome the fear of the muzzle report - or maybe it was so funny that I relaxed and became one with the weapon...

Gunnie

We used to have a draft system in the Belgian army. Those who wanted to do a longer term, had a univ degree and qualified for the tests, could become a reserve offr. After five nasty months of training, I was sent to Germany to serve in a support battallion, ammo company. All my NCO's were professional military. They were the technical ammo experts. We had one civil secretary in th office, who had brought a huge plant that sat on the corner of her desk. When someone's coffee got cold, they made a habbit of feeding it to the plant before they went for a fresh cup. One day, when we returned from one of the depots, she had put a little sign in the plant pot that read "I don't like coffee".
The next morning when she came in, there was a new sign waiting for her in the pot : "this is the army, love, and ye shall eat and drink what the cook serves you !".

We all stayed at an offrs mess. The highest ranking offr staying there was a captain. We stayed in the bar till two or three in the morning, almost every night. Alcohol was duty free. A glass of whiskey cost 30cent. There was one rule though, to organise the discipline among the younger officers: the last officer to leave the bar had to command the drill ceremony for the early morning raising of the flag. I can assure you it is not funny when you have a few hundred soldiers and a few higher officers suspiciously watching your every move while you try to remember the exact drill routine and hope nobody notices how bad your hangover is. New officers who had joined our unit suffered badly from this. Only after a few weeks, they started to realise that they were having bacardi-coke while all the older officers drank plain coke half the evening, they had wodka orange while we had plain orange juice, etc... ! It worked every time, and it was hilarious !

Jan - you're beginning to confirm some suspicions I had about my frontline and senior command officers! :-) :-)

Gunnie

Hey Gunnie,
If we ever meet up remind me to tell you about the "skivvy shows" at some of the clubs, particularly those concerning a stack of silver dollars (the old fashioned kind, not the quarter sized ones)

So thats how they do it. No wonder we enlisted were always getting in trouble along with the new officer, especially the ne LT's.. Next time it has to be a beer party. Theres no way you can fake drinking a beer!!!!!!!

I was never in the military service, but I did go to Catholic school for 8 years. It's alot like the Marines, less the tanks and the nuns are a little tougher than the D.I.'s.

Ron C.
Ashtabula, Oh

Oh I remember them too - that was part of the "Banana Show" when I was runnin' BC (Birth Control) Street on Okinawa. :-) I remember the ping-pong balls too - ahhh the overseas tour...

Gunnie

Yeah - I know - they always tell 'ya to follow your Lieutenant too! Look what they unleash upon us non-coms!!! :-)

Gunnie

Well Epi,

lol ! You mustn't forget we were all Belgians : never too shy to ask for a fresh barrel. After five or six years at a Belgian university, your liver can handle that !
And it was not always funny: the offr bar rule "last one to go to sleep performs the parade drill" applied all year, to all of us. There was always one poor bastard who had to do the dirty work in the morning. Except for the MD. He could drink and never had to perform (the flag parade).

Hey Ron,
I know what you mean about Catholick schools. My wife went to one for 12 years, all the way through high school. She has scars on her knuckles from the nun's rulers.

Lets see, Drill Instructors - Catholic Nuns, is ther a similarity there!!!!!!!!!
Did they come from the same mold??????

Yeah, must be one of those lend/lease aggrements!!

I dnt know if you guys over seas heard og SGT Slaughter, I know the guys over here heard of him. He was a wrestler and is now behind the scenes of WWF wrestling. Anyways, my drill sargent in basic looked exactly like him. If by mistake you called him that, forget about it, we where pushing down Leonardwood for hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Funny, my TI was short and dark-haired, and had a cheezy little half-mustache. Don't wanna say he looked like Adoph, but...

Gunnie

A good modeler keeps his molds well separated. Just imagine.... nuns with guns !

THIS, is going to take some thought.......

From what my wife says a nun with a ruler is worse.......

In my school the nuns didn't need guns, they had yard sticks that they wheeled like a light sabre. They could also hit you right between the eyes with a chalk eraser from 50 feet.

Ron C.
Ashtabula, Oh

Boresighting a chalk eraser! I wonder how that is done. Do you think they go to the range twice a year to qualify!!!!

Yes Epi, twice a year the nuns would have a retreat, where they would hone theirs skills. Yes life was tough for students at "Our Lady of the Iron Fist" school.

Ron C.
Ashtabula, Oh

Back to base camp.
A common joke the NCO's played with new privates that joined the unit. They sent them to me to pick up the "key to the parade ground". One of these guys was a bit of a nasty character, so I did not reveal to him this was a joke... I told him the keys were to be picked up with the company cdr. Now thàt was a mean pitbull !!!
(no nun intended)

Jan

Gopher tricks. The old get me a "can of squelch" and I always like the changing the air in the tires from summer air to winter air. Send the new kids out to check the air pressure on the raod wheels of a M-113. All those character building tasks. Guess that's why the military has a twisted idea of teaching 'discipline' vs. harassment. Like what one my NCO Academy instructors said (about 1984 in ANOC), “In the old days we called it chicken poo-poo stuff, now days it’s called attention to detail.” Forget college hazing, the military got it down to an art form. OH, the things we did to each other why on deployments!!!! Woes he who fell asleep early or passed out first. And that kids is called fun. As mad a s you got when it happened to you, you had just as much fun as everyone else doing it to someone else. Highly trained, highly motivated and unsupervised by a ‘real adult’ (read that as a officer with a OER coming up soon) and sometimes with live munitions.